Your Personal Harvest

“The season for enjoying the fullness of life — partaking of the harvest, sharing the harvest with others, and reinvesting and saving portions of the harvest for yet another season of growth.” ~~ Denis Waitley

My yard, decorated by my daughter and husband

Autumn is my FAVORITE time of year. In the area of South Carolina where I live, the summers are so hot, humid and sticky…I feel like I’m so lazy and useless during the summer! But the fall season brings crisper, cooler weather, which seems to give me a renewed sense of purpose and energy. It seems like every fall, I start taking stock of where I am on my life’s journey, reevaluating if I’m still heading in the direction I think I should be.

In terms of yoga, when I do this reevaluation of my journey, I usually find that I’ve slacked off in my practice during the summer months for a variety of reasons. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case for me this summer, and I was actually able to practice MORE than normal. Yay!

However, many people get distracted by all the summer holidays and parties, and find they are too busy to fit in their yoga practice. But in the fall, life begins to slow down all around us, and we begin to notice things like the leaves falling from the trees and the animals preparing themselves for the colder days. If you feel you’ve been “too busy” these past few months to notice the life all around you, then use this new season as a time to SLOW DOWN. This is the perfect time to focus on your intentions, as autumn invites us to turn inwards and reinvest in our “personal harvest”, so we can prepare ourselves for yet another season of personal growth.

If your life seems like one big “To Do” list, where you’re constantly ticking off one thing and moving on to the next, now is the time to pause and reflect on what you have achieved so far this year. When we’re constantly running from one thing to the next, in a constant state of “busyness”, we don’t take the time to note the things we’ve been able to complete. We don’t take even just a few seconds to do sit back and look at what we’ve accomplished.

Use your yoga practice as a way to nurture yourself. Make sure to include not just the poses (asanas), but also breathing exercises and meditation. Bring your yoga outside at this time of year if you can, as yoga is a great way to connect not just with the body, but with all things connected to nature.

Incorporating all these elements into your practice can be really helpful if you have a hard time with the concept of slowing down and letting go of the things which do not truly serve you. They can help you to cope better with anything presented to you, leaving you feeling more fulfilled and complete, happy with yourself just as you are. And when you can do this, the growth can continue for another season, helping you to become everything you are meant to be.